I received my first ever blog award from Miranda of MirandArt. It is the Liebster Blog (Nicest Blog) award, which has been invented to give starting and relatively unknown blogs a spotlight.

She said she enjoys reading my blog and I think that is so sweet of her. I love sharing my soaping-life with others.

The rules for acception the award:

Say thank you to the giver and link back to their blog (just to be kind).
If you accept the award and want to pass it on, you make a message on your blog that includes the Liebster Blog picture and the instructions (which you are reading now).
Now give the award to 3-5 of your favourite blogs and in your message leave a link to each of their blogs.
Write a comment to the nominees that you have awarded the Liebster Blog award to them.

So for my nominees I have had a really difficult time as I love so many blogs. It was hard to decide who should be placed in the spotlight next.

So the award goes to:Eenvoudig leven (a blog about how a family goes back to the basics of a simple life)Jenora Soaps (a very nice soap blog from sunny Spain) Lavarie (a very talented soaper from Germany)Marina Soap (also a very nice soap blog from Germany)Jabones: Alquimia de las plantas (such beautiful soaps)

Apart from soap I have also been busy making bath fizzies. I love them so much, especially as I have a bath almost every day with the baby. This is why I want the bath fizzies to have an added value.

These are the Lavender-Geranium bath fizzies. They have essential oils in for the fragrance and olive oil and coconut oil to moisturize. Very nice, but the flowers on top are not so nice. Even though they look very pretty on top, in the bath it looks as though an army of mice played there. In the next batch I will not pot them on top anymore.

Finally the Monoi de Tahiti. I love this fresh, flowery fragrance. Unfortunately my soap turned brown, but the fizzers stay a crisp white. Of course I added oils for moisturizing your skin in the bath.

More soaps I have made lately. These give me such a great spring feeling.

The first is a luxury soap with shea and buttermilk. Very creamy and soft for the skin. The fragrance is a really lovely Black raspberry & Vanilla. To give a soft scrub I have added some seeds.

The second is also with shea and buttermilk, but this time in my favourite fragrance of the moment Green Tea & Ginger. It is a fresh scent, but with a real tea undertone. I like the way the colour came out as well, but I think I would like to add some green tea leaves (crushed) in the next batch.

Third is a remake of the always popular Honey, Oatmeal & Milk. Of cource I have added real honey, buttermilk and oatmeal.So this is a very nice buffing soap to get rid of your dead winter skin.

The next one I will call Scrub me all over. As I was making two soaps at the same time I accidentally put the oatmeal in this soap. Even though it was meaned to be a regular soap it turned out quite nice. The fragrance is light, fruity and airy.

The last soap is a german salt soap. This soap is completely smooth, very hard and smells very nice. This one is unisex, but I think most men will enjoy this scent a lot.

It has been quite a while since my last post, but time just seems to run away at times.
A couple of weeks ago my maternity leave ended and I had to start work again. As I had been absent for more than 6 months I had to get used to it again, but now it is already like I never left (don't know if this is good or bad...).
Luckily I have done some soaping these past weeks as I have my first craft show of 2011 coming up at easter.

Firstly I have done some 100% natural soaps.

The first is a real castille with 100% olive oil, no colour and no fragrance. Very good for babies and people with sensitive skin.

The second soap is also a real castille, but with Lavender essential oil and real lavender on top. I love the colour as most of the time the flowers seem to turn brown, but these as a really lovely blue-purple.

And last is my Camomille-calendula castille. Also made with 100% olive oil, and with honey, crushed camomille and calendula flowers inside. No colour and no fragrance is added. This is a very nice and gentle scrub soap. Ideal for your face.

Goodgirl is offering a really nice give away or blogcandy. You can have a look here to see her beautiful products.
When the One World, One Heart event is over I will have a very special blogcandy as well to celebrate the opening of my shop.

Welcome to my blog and the fifth (and final) One World One Heart event! My name is Sonja and I am a soapmaker from the Netherlands.
Being a working mum of three lovely kids of 15yr, 10yr and 4 months, I try to relax by making soaps and other bath and beauty products. I love using my creativity in the design, fragrance and ingredients I use to produce unique and high quality products.

I also love reading blogs of other creative and interesting people, so I am looking forward to visiting as many of the participating blogs as possible and of course of everyone who leaves a comment on mine.

Part of the event is a bit of blogcandy to give away. I have chosen to have two things to give away:

1. A set of 4 Spicy Chai Tea Fizzy Bath Hearts.
They are so nice for these cold winter days. They are not only fragranced beautifully, but they also have buttermilk, coconut and olive oil in them to pamper your skin.

EDIT: As I already passed the 50 replies I am adding a 3rd give away: A sample pack with 5 assorted 1/4 soaps.

To participate in this event is easy: just leave a comment. The winners will be pulled out of the hat on the 18th February. Comments can be posted until 17th 23:59. Just make sure you include the email address or blog you can be reached on.
If you like my blog just join me as a follower. I have regular blogcandy give aways as well.
There are many bloggers participating in this event. If you would like to see the list or find out more about the event just klik on the button below. This will take you to Lisa's site where you can find all the information.

The new shop is almost finished and will go live this weekend! I am so proud, as I think he looks great. As soon as he is officially opened I will celebrate with a nice bit of blogcandy, so keep your eye on this blog.

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For valentine day I made these bathfizzies in heartshape. They are made with buttermilk, coconut oil and olive oil, so they not only give you a relaxing bath, but it is also skin loving.

First ones are in Green tea & Ginger fragrance. I looooooove this one. It really smells like green tea with a bit of ginger and a hint of citrus, not sweet, not too green, but just right. My new favourite.

The second kind is Spicy Chai Tea with warm spices and a hint of vanilla. Really nice winter bath fragrance.

* A castille liquid handsoap which smells so nice. I have put it in the downstairs toilet, so all guests can try it.
* A christmas tree soap & bubble bath. The tree looks incredible with lots of glitter and very small soap stars. The bubble bath has such a nice smell that my husband joined me in the bath when I used it as he could not resist.
* Solid shampoo & conditioner. They look great, so I am looking forward to trying it very soon. At the moment I try to limit my hair washing as the baby is usually by my side in the bath.
* A lovely green winter soap. Looks great with pieces of transparent (not M&P) soap.

* A very, very nice scrub. Best one so far!
* A soywax candle. I have not tried it yet. Right now I am using the spicy one from Jane.

All in all a very nice package. Well worth the wait I think. Thanks Corry!

I wanted to make a soap that resembled the inside of a freshly bitten apple. Crisp & clean in colour to go with the lovely fresh apple fragrance. Not too sweet or too perfumy.
To make the challenge a bit more exciting I wanted this to be a goats milk soap. Well I think I managed to keep the colour very light, but still have all the benefits of the goats milk.

The first few weeks of the year I have tried to make time to soap. I find it relaxing to be busy with the whole creative process of thinking of the design, the fragrance and the soaping properties and eventually creating what I thought of.
Actually often the fragrance is the trigger for the rest. You see, I am a real fragrance addict. I have hunderds of fragrances and still get my kicks in finding (and buying) more. I even dream about picking out fragrances at times. I sometimes wonder if I am the only fragrance-junky. In a soap fragrance is my number one, then design, as I do appreciate eye appeal.
After fragrance and design it is the feel of the soap that gets me going. I like soaps that leave a lovely luxury feeling on your skin.

This soap has been made with dark stout (bockbier). Beer has a lot of good things in it and it makes the soap feel lovely. This is enhanced by the flower honey, which leaves skin feeling lovely and soft. The fragrance is milk chocolat and vanilla which is supported by the natural fragrance of the hops. To ensure it leaves your skin moisturised cocoa butter has been added as a superfatter.

The soap will be up for sale before valentines day, so some men will be spoiled with a soap for real men ;-)

The last few days it has been a bit less pleasant in our house. My boy of 10 came downstairs in the middle of the night to say he threw up on his bed. I think I am not the only one who hates changing dirty bed sheets in the middle of the night, but at least the mess got contained to the bed.
He was sick all night and still felt bad the next day, poor thing.
Thankfully he is much better today, but it did not much good for my soaping efforts.
Yesterday I was soaping for valentines day, but the recipe I had was not enough, so I decided to double it. However, lazy as I am, I did so out of the top of my head and therefore forgot to double my palm oil. The consequence was that my beautiful inlays were all lye heavy. Thankfully I found out in time and could rebatch them, but it was a really stupid mistake.

Back to the topic of this post. Firstly I forgot to include the lovely necklace Jane made for the swap. I really like it, as these are my favourite colours.

The swap package of Eucalypta is not in my possesion yet. I probably venture over to Hilversum with the baby tomorrow to pick it up.
Therefore I will showcase my own swap items. My theme was foodies.

* Brown sugar and fig body lotion. My daughter picked the fragrance and it is lovely.
* Caramel frappuccino soap. CP soap with a mild coffeescrub and a shea M&P topping. Great to get those garlic hands smelling nice again.
* Lemon biscuit sugar scrub. Made from scratch with creamsoap. I just hope the sugar holds up, as there is quite some liquid in the soap.
* Pink sugar scrub. Made with foaming bath butter and 30% oils. One of my fav fragrances.
* Breakfast bubble bar. Made with butter milk, honey and oatmeal. Very nice in the bath.
* Lollipop bubble bar. Fragranced with a very sweet lollipop fragrance. Great for the kids.
* Chai tea lipbalm with lots of butters.
* 2 fragranced candles (cinnamon & pecan pie) and a holder.

The 4th package is of Lyanne (Pure Soap). She makes wonderfull soaps, so I was very curious to what she made for us. I can say she did not dissapoint me :-)

Everything looks very professional, so compliments for the packaging.
* My favourite is the soy wax. It smells really great and uplifting. She even included a wax holder for us.
* The scrub with shea and cocoa butter leaves my skin soft and moisturized.
* The massage candle looks great in the little tree cup. I will have to try it on my husband.
* Pine fragranced Bath jelly looks lovely. I never tried a bath jelly, as the ones at Lush really make my skin crawl. I hate people pocking their fingers in my bath jelly, blehhh.
* A cupcake soap with life like whipped cream. Yummy!

Jane has send us a sweet basket with all these pretty things in it. Everything looks cared for and you can see she made it all with love.

* Soy wax tarts in a really nice spicy xmas fragrance. I love the smell of it in my house.
* Body lotion with a subtle fragrance. Personally I like big smells, but this is perfect if you want to lotion up before going out, but not have it compete with your expensive perfume.
* Salt & sugar scrub with foaming bath butter. It is a nice and firm scrub and not very oily, which is good I think. The fragrance is very subtle as well.
* Bubble bar which my son stole straight away. He is using it tomorrow in his bath.
* A spicy soap cake with again a lovely fragrance.

Thanks Jane! I love the fresh colours you used as well. It just screams ice and snow (although there is none left unfortunately).

Patrick of Kaars en zo, has made a beautiful collection of products for the swap. We did the swapping of the packages in his nice shop in Hilversum where he sells gorgeous candles and soaps.

Patrick choose a fragrance as his theme. It is a mixture of geranium, bergamot and some other notes.
I love geranium, so this is really up my alley.
* A rose soap cupcake with a little rosebud on top.
* A shampoo that smells divine.
* A firm sugarscrub in the same fragrance.
* A small bag of bath salt for a relaxing footbath.
* A solid bubble bath bar with lots of glycerine, so very moisturising in the bath.
* A gel candle that looks like a glass of wine. Very classy.

On 27th December I took part in a mega X-mas swap. The goal was to make:* Liquid product* Solid soap in cake shape* Fizzing (rolled up) product with SLSa or similar* Scrub * something to create a nice atmosphere in the bathroom* something of your own choice (handmade)
I will post pics of one package a day on my blog.

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Bonsoap
Marleen came to the swap with her gorgeous little girl. She made a beautiful bag with lots of goodies.

* A showergel that has just the right consistence. This has taken a lot of trial and error, but she really nailed it!
* A christmas soap which looks good enough to eat. The pink "cream" is really cool and makes it look just yummy.
* Her solid bubble bath cup smells very orangy (which I totally love). The great thing about this is that you can just hold it under running water until you have enough bubbles in your bath. The left over bubble bath can be dried up and be used for the next bath.
* The scrub is a very gentle wash off lotion bar type. Very nice for your face and absolutely not drying.
* The shower smoothy unfortunately did not survive the dutch postal services, but it smells like strawberry sweets. My daughter really digs this one, hahaha.
* I have hung the soap chain on my book cupboard and it looks very classy.

Thanks Marleen!

Tomorrow I will show you the beautiful gift we received from Patrick of Kaars enzo.